Recipe for home-made Russian Salad

We eat it in bars and restaurants.  When we’re going to have a coffee or cold drink, it’s the first thing we order.

But summer’s here and hasn’t it occurred to you that Russian salad is a brilliant starter?  Fresh and very, very healthy because 90% of its ingredients are vegetables.

One of the secrets for your salad to be a success is the way the vegetables are cooked. It takes time. But it’s one of the most well received dishes during the summer and besides that, one of the cheapest so let’s get started.

Ingredients for 4 people

• 300 gr peas
• 1 kg potatoes
• 400 gr tinned tuna
• 500 gr carrots
• 4 eggs
• Salt

Ingredients for the mayonnaise

• 1 egg
• Extra virgin olive oil
• 2 spoonfuls vinager

Preparation

1. Cook the peas for 10 minutes in slightly salted water. Drain them and set them aside.
2. Now cook the carrots which have been previously diced. Cook them also in slightly salted water. You need to cook them for 15 minutes. Drain and set aside.
3. Now it’s time to cook the eggs. Ten minutes is enough. It’s better to start off with cold water.  Peel them when they’re cold and set them aside as well.
4. Peel the potatoes and dice them. Cook them in salted water.  Fifteen minutes will be necessary.  Drain them and set them aside.   Take care when cooking them.  This is probably the most important part of the process.  If they’re not perfectly cooked, you’ll possibly ruin the salad.
5. Now, what you have to do is put everything you’ve boiled into a bowl taking great care not to break anything up when mixing.
6. Open the tin of tuna, break the tuna up and add it to the bowl.
7. All you’ve got to do now is prepare the mayonnaise so we’re going to see how to do it.

Making the mayonnaise

1. Now it’s time to take your whisk. Put the extra virgin olive oil, the egg and a pinch of salt into a glass.
2. Start whisking.
3. The mayonnaise will begin to take form in a few seconds. The movements you make with the whisk must be very smooth.
4. Add the vinager without stopping beating. You can also add a bit of lemon juice
5. Put it into the fridge to cool down.

And it’s almost ready.  All you’ve got to do is take all of the vegetables once they’re cold and put the mayonnaise over them until they’re completely covered.

The way you serve it is up to you.  When speaking about Russian salad, there are an infinity of variations.   You can add many ingredients as for example, fish (hake is brilliant), or seafood (prawns, for example).

One thing we’d like to point out when talking about mayonnaise: We’re sure that many people probably prefer to make it using sunflower oil.  They consider that in that way, the taste is less strong.   That’s true but if you want a more intense and natural flavour, don’t hesitate to use extra virgin olive oil.  The better the quality of the raw ingredients, the tastier the Russian salad will be, don’t you think?